The music industry got turned on its head in 2024. Artificial intelligence (AI) bulldozed its way through, creating more tracks than all human musicians combined.
Platforms churned out millions of songs faster than a human could tune a guitar. The numbers were insane, the consequences were wild, and the industry now stands forever changed.
Mubert, a top player in the AI music scene, cranked out over 100 million tracks in just the first half of the year. The global AI music market, worth $2.9 billion in January 2024, was running circles around traditional song production. Cloud-based solutions powered 71.4% of this market.
Musicians struggle to keep up
A survey in December showed that 60% of musicians were using AI tools for everything from composition to production. Producers weren’t far behind, with 36.8% fully integrating AI into their workflows. AI-assisted tools became as essential as a drum kit or a microphone stand.
But not everyone was cheering. The rise of AI also caused widespread panic about job security. A study predicted creators could lose up to 27% of their revenue by 2028. The worry wasn’t just about money, it was also about creativity.
“Who owns a song when an algorithm does the heavy lifting?” became the industry’s existential crisis. And while regulators talked about protecting human creators, no one seemed to have a solid answer.
Listeners though? They didn’t seem to care much. 82% of them couldn’t tell if a song was made by a person or a program. As far as they were concerned, a bop was a bop.
The blurred line between human and machine raised uncomfortable questions. Does it matter if the music is good? For AI, that answer seemed to be a resounding “no.”
The market explodes and so do the numbers
Analysts predicted a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.8%, with the market hitting $38.71 billion by 2033. This wasn’t speculation—it was momentum. Revenues from AI music services are expected to soar, potentially reaching €9 billion by 2028.
The public couldn’t get enough of it. In April 2024, Google reported 267,000 searches for “AI music.” The curiosity wasn’t just academic. Fans, creators, and even skeptics were getting into AI-generated tracks.
Streaming platforms became crowded with machine-made music. Some platforms even had to tweak their algorithms to stop human-made music from getting buried. The irony was hilarious.
Copyright chaos and existential debates
The rise of AI music brought on a lot of copyright drama. Artists reported endless headaches trying to navigate intellectual property rights. Who gets credit when a computer generates a melody? The producer? The programmer? The person who fed the AI a few prompts? No one knew for sure, and it was driving everyone insane.
Streaming platforms faced a new kind of challenge. AI wasn’t just creating music—it was dominating playlists. Algorithms optimized for machine-made content sidelined human creators, making it harder for them to reach their audience.
Some platforms tried to rebalance the scales, but the damage was already done. Meanwhile, the tech itself kept changing. By late 2024, AI was mastering albums, predicting trends, and creating custom soundtracks for brands and events. The capabilities expanded so quickly that the industry could barely keep up.
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